up, as too much for her strength, the attempt at cheerfulness. The dimes and nickels were handled by fingers which had no springiness left in them. Even to Burrows, who had seen earlier signs that others had not, her new appearance came as a shock. The hot weather - in a place like this, too - must have done it. It would help if she could only get away for a couple of weeks, he thought; but he knew she would n't.

It grew cooler, soon, and the girl, along with others, sat up straighter, and breathed and moved more easily. But she was not the girl of the early spring. Seeing her when she was alone at the desk, one could fancy that she had begun to consider what the round of her life really was, to reflect upon the dreariness and monotony of it, and, maybe, to cultivate a silent rebellion of spirit. There was the faintest suggestion of defiance about her. Opportunities to talk with the men were seized upon with more avidity, as though they furnished the only respite from a dull task. Her “offishness was quite gone, and some of those who patronized the restaurant ventured, without reproof, to call her by her first name.

The change in the cashier's manner and bearing had been so gradual that, from day to day, there had seemed to be practically no change at all. One who carried his office troubles to lunch with him, and thought upon them while he ate, would probably not have observed any difference; but Burrows made the effort, successful sometimes if not always, to leave his work behind him at the midday recess. He, therefore, had the leisure as well as the taste for observing closely those about him, and he found it hard to realize that the self-contained person to whom he paid his reckoning in August, and the flushed, timid girl who had fumbled over his change in February, were one and the same. Her clothes, cheap though they were, now had a modish way about them, the label of the city. Her hair was piled toward the front of

her head, and the loose ends were gathered up uncompromisingly. A ring, rather too bulky, encircled one of the fingers of her left hand.

Burrows was hurrying toward the ferry one afternoon in the latter part of September, when he saw, just ahead of him, a figure that looked familiar. A moment afterward he recognized Ralston's cashier, though her back was toward him. She was with a man. At the next corner the pair walked quickly up the stairs to the elevated station. As Burrows passed beneath he heard her laugh merrily and make some remark about a play which, apparently, they were to see that evening. She must have enjoyed it, for next day her spirits were better than they had been for many weeks. She acted as if new possibilities of pleasure had, all at once, been opened up to her.

It did not seem to be the same brand of happiness, though, which she had brought with her from the country. There was something less reposeful about the cashier's humor now, an air of nervousness which bespoke, always, anticipation of some future pleasure rather than content with the present. This new humor brought no return of clear skin and unweary mouth; indeed, its effect seemed to be quite the opposite. The girl's face thinned, in the fall months, until it was positively haggard. No longer was it necessary for one to be observant to notice the change in her appearance. The men who ate at Ralston's began to comment upon it; some even ventured to mention it to her, and advised her, half jocularly, to take better care of herself.

Another time Burrows happened to see her away from her desk. It was on one of those rare occasions when he brought his wife to the theatre in the city. The play was over, and they were coming out into the dazzling light of the street. Across their path, almost within arm's reach, a man and woman passed, arm in arm. Burrows caught a glimpse of the woman's face, and then she was gone. He recalled, later, that she had

around her neck a large fur boa. This was in November.

A week or so before Christmas the men who ate at Ralston's were snickering, and nudging one another waggishly, over the change in the cashier's hair. Formerly a dull brown, it had, of a sudden, acquired a new lustre. Burrows looked, and shook his head sadly.

"It's not even cleverly done," he said to himself.

Within a few days, though, the deadly chemical was applied more thoroughly. The hair close to the scalp was treated, and there were left no uncolored strands to tell the tale of deception. Now Ralston's Rapid Restaurant had a goldenhaired cashier. The sophistication of her appearance had received the final touch.

If any of the facetious comment anent the transformation reached her ears, she gave no sign of it. Unembarrassed, she faced all comers with a confidence that no stares could disturb. More men stopped at the desk than formerly. As the rôle of entertainer grew more engrossing, the duties of a cashier grew more troublesome. Even the hand that made change only one hand was needed now seemed to have an offended air whenever it was called upon to move. Two or three of the men had, by this time, achieved special favor, and to them was permitted a greater familiarity than to the rest. They always lingered for several minutes after eating, and observed with condescending airs others who were less favored.

During the winter, at Ralston's, everything went on with the uneventful smoothness of prosperity. The gloomy room had all its chairs occupied in the middle of the day. Sometimes the men came in shivering, from a dry, bracing cold; sometimes they came stamping and scraping their feet, from a pavement covered with halffrozen slush. But they always came, for a man must eat even if he has to eat at Ralston's. The cashier was regular in attendance; and her hair kept, successfully, its new color.

For a while her altered appearance irritated Burrows; he resented the fact that her presence was so in accord with the general atmosphere of the place, that she no longer reminded him of fresh air and green fields and flowers. Of course, he might have changed his seat and thus have avoided seeing her, but he would not admit that so trivial a thing could disturb him to that extent. It was not long, naturally enough, before irritation was supplanted by indifference. There was nothing about the girl, now, to interest him. The cashier was simply the cashier, a self-composed young woman who dressed too conspicuously, one of thousands.

So it was for two or three months.

By the beginning of March he had almost forgotten that she had ever been other than what she now was. Then, one Monday, as he sat down and unfolded his paper napkin, he looked up and saw that the yellow-haired, sophisticated person was gone. At the desk sat a young girl who was strange to Ralston's. In her cheeks was the glow of perfect health, in her eyes a speculative, half-timid interest in everything about her. She radiated hope and innocence.

Her fingers handled the coins with a clumsiness that was eloquent of inexperience. Lost in the difficulties of her task, she had no time to notice the admiring glances of the men. Those who had finished filed by, placed their money upon the mat, and departed. Those who still sat looked toward the desk with a new interest. A youth in one of the chairs in the rear row, by the wall, whispered to his companion,—

WE are told with wearisome reiteration, until it vexes us even as a thing that is raw, that America produces few great scholars who are pioneers in the domain of thought; that in exploiting a continent we have been too busy to explore the mysteries of natural science, or the mind of man. So far as this charge is true, and we cannot deny that it has some foundation, it is commonly ascribed to our rapid industrial development, with the consequent attractiveness of material pursuits which draw our most promising youth away from the paths of learning. But must not our schools, and above all our universities and colleges, take their share of blame? It is our privilege to magnify the importance of education, but in doing so we must assume responsibility, not only for the benefits conferred thereby, but also for any evils that may flow from errors committed.

Education has many sides and many functions; otherwise it would not be the fascinating pursuit that it is. Both in discussion and in practice, we take account of imparting knowledge, and of the training of the mind; but in our zeal for these essential matters we seem, perhaps, to have neglected a not less important function, that of sifting out the minds capable of great intellectual achievement. Is it not possible, in short, that we have paid attention too exclusively to teaching, and too little to recruiting young men of the highest promise? This ought we to have done, and not to leave the other undone, for both are needed in keeping educational work at a high level. Every one who has had personal experience in a university must be aware that the standard maintained is due quite as much to the calibre of the students as to that of

their instructors. The success of our law schools, for example, must be attributed not only to the capacity of the professors, and to the direct effect of their method of teaching, but in no less degree to the fact that these schools attract the most ambitious and vigorous college graduates.

Vast as the improvement in educational methods has been, it is not clear that the process of sifting is as effective as it used to be. The old classical school, with its rigid curriculum, was inelastic, unadaptable to individual needs, and is said to have been repellent and dulling to the ordinary child; but none the less it seems to have sorted out the boys with intellectual aptitudes and to have steered them toward higher education. The same thing was probably true of the old-fashioned college. The minimum, and indeed the average, amount of study has risen very much since those days. No doubt the ordinary student was more indolent then, and acquired less mental training, but it may be doubted whether there is now so great an incentive to superiority in scholarship. If that be true, our colleges are not performing so well as they did in the past the function of intellectual selection.

But have we not a new institution created to supply that very need? The Graduate Schools in our universities, that consummate product of the last thirty years, are designed to be real nurseries of scholars. They were surely intended to recruit the intellectual flower of the youth, fitting them to be leaders and teachers of the next generation; and when Johns Hopkins opened its doors it became a mecca for young men who aspired to high places among the learned. Since that time Graduate Schools have multi

plied, their students have increased beyond expectation, and with their growth in popularity they have "faded into the light of common day." They certainly contain men of the finest type, but the bulk of their students are not of first-rate quality, and much of the instruction consists in burnishing rather soft metal. In the best of them the standard is very high so far as training and knowledge are concerned; quite as high, perhaps, as is wise, for it cannot be raised indefinitely with out risk to one of the functions performed by these schools. They are, in fact, attempting to serve two objects, which are not necessarily identical in America: the education of productive scholars and of teachers; and there is some danger that in the process one or both of these objects may suffer.

The Graduate Schools of our universities contain in the aggregate some six thousand students, all preparing themselves, according to the popular impression, to be great scholars. But with any such conception the figures are monstrous. If we could turn out a score of men a year with any serious chance of eminence we should do well. The great bulk of the students have no delusions of this nature. All but a few of them are being trained to teach; to diffuse knowledge, not to add to it; to be live wires, not to be dynamos. We talk of their all doing research work, but that term covers a multitude of operations. The original thesis they are required to present for a degree proves that a student can handle original material, not that he can construct with it anything really new; it shows a familiarity with the sources of knowledge, but it does not show capacity for productive scholarship.

Our method of attracting students to the Graduate Schools is defective. If you want to generate energy you must have a resistance to be overcome. If you desire to recruit men of force and ambition, there must be a great prize to be won by facing an obstacle, just as, when you want to recruit strong characters, you must call for sacrifice. In our Graduate Schools

we pursue to some extent a contrary policy, for we subsidize men freely with scholarships. By so doing we are in danger of making the Graduate School the easiest path for the good but docile scholar with little energy, independence, or ambition. There is danger of attracting an industrious mediocrity, which will become later the teaching force in colleges and secondary schools. Such a policy is due in part to a feeling that a large number of students is needed to justify the expense of our graduate instruction; and in part to a less laudable spirit of intercollegiate rivalry. A long list of graduate students is regarded as a proof that a university is fruitful in its highest work of training the great scholars of the future, but unfortunately mere numbers prove nothing of the kind. Yet the popular assumption is not unnatural, because it is hard even for men engaged in education, and it is impossible for the general public, to distinguish between quality and quantity in an institution with which they are not thoroughly familiar.

While, therefore, the instruction in our Graduate Schools is admirable, our success in recruiting for them students of the strongest intellectual fibre is by no means so great. This is the vital point, for although eaglets are raised best in an eagle's nest, yet there is a better chance of producing them by setting eagle's eggs under a hen, than hen's eggs under an eagle. But how are the eagle's eggs to be collected? How are young men of intellectual power to be drawn into the Graduate School? My answer is that young men must be attracted to the pursuit of scholarship while undergraduates in college, and success in doing this depends upon the extent to which intellectual appetite and ambition are stirred there. It depends, moreover, not only upon the intensity with which a few men are stirred, but also upon the diffusion of that attitude among the mass of undergraduates.

The intellectual feast spread by the Graduate Schools does little, therefore

to create an appetite for learning. It feeds hungry scholars, but it does not make them. Craving for scholarship must be formed in college, and is deeply affected by the general atmosphere there. Important as this is for the recruiting of great scholars, it is of not less consequence in giving an intellectual tone to all the alumni wherever their paths in life may lead; but from that point of view the present situation is far from perfect.

It is safe to say that no member of a faculty is satisfied with the respect in which scholarship is held by the great body of college students to-day. Every one complains in his heart, although in public he is apt to declare that the conditions in his own college are better than they are elsewhere. In fact, we know little enough about the state of affairs in our own institutions, and are quite in the dark when we presume to draw comparisons with other places. This is a case where measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves, is not wise. In spite of divergences in detail, the problem is essentially the same everywhere, and any college that helps to solve it will confer a benefit upon the whole country. Nor is it enough if we are better than our fathers were, if the average amount of study in college is greater, and the minimum much greater, than it was. In the community at large the general activity has increased prodigiously; even elegant indolence is by no means so fashionable as it used to be. Our colleges ought, in a movement of this kind, to set the pace, not follow it; and they must not rest satisfied until they create among their students a high standard of achievement.

When the elective system was first introduced, its advocates believed that it would have a powerful selective influence, by offering to each student ampler opportunity for self-development in the branches of learning that he might prefer. The opponents of the system did not deny this, but complained that the undergraduate was not capable of judging what was

best for him, and that to follow his own bent would lead to a one-sided development. In the plans of men, the indirect, and therefore unforeseen, consequences are often more important than those which form the subject of discussion. The elective system - which has to a greater or less extent penetrated almost all our colleges did, indeed, furnish an opportunity for self-development; but at the same time it weakened the stimulus to exertion. It was based upon the assumption that opportunity alone is enough, that a man will put forth his utmost powers if he can do so in a congenial field. Yet this is by no means true, even in the case of the highest genius. Many a man of talent has worked only from the stress of poverty, groaning all the time at his hard fate. Shakespeare himself did much of his writing under the pressure of finishing plays for the stage; and the difficulty of keeping artists and literary men up to time is notorious, a difficulty not wholly due to the fitful inspiration of the muse.

If opportunity alone were enough, hereditary wealth, which vastly enlarges opportunity, ought to increase intellectual productiveness. There ought to be no place "where wealth accumulates and men decay." But there is too much truth in the common belief that abundant means usually lessens the output of creative work; and even Shakespeare, when rich enough to retire as a country gentleman, wrote no more. The mere opportunity for self-development, and for the free exercise of one's faculties, the mere desire for self-expression, are not enough with most men to bring out all their latent powers. This is because in civilized life we are seeking to foster an activity far above the normal; we are striving to evoke a mental energy much greater than that required for a bare subsistence, and unless education can effect this it is a failure. In addition to opportunity, there must be a stimulus of some kind.

Under the old rigid curriculum the stimulus was supplied in part by compe